October Used Car Prices and Availability

Looking at the data released by CAP this month it seems the old trends no longer ring true. In days gone by October used car prices would have typically been 0.5% lower than September as it hit a bit of a lull after the new plate release activity. Not true this year though, this months book price sees virtually no change against September.


Shortage of quality stock looks to be causing issues around the market place, with researchers describing chaotic scenes at some auctions as dealers were desperate for new stock. Normally September sees a fresh influx of used car stock as people trade their cars in for a new one. Not so this year, long lead-times on new cars has lead to a shortage of part exchanges’ coming on to the market. This problem shows no sign of abating as most manufacturers are making cars to order and not building stock as they did in the boom time.


This is compounding the problems experienced over the past two years. Scrapage took a lot of road worthy cars out of the market place and didn’t generate the PX turnaround cars . It did a job in getting older (but many still roadworthy) cars off the road and helped in the short term increase new car sales….it didn’t replenish in any way the used car market stock. Month by month there have been fewer quality used cars available. It is estimated that by 2011 there will be 2 million fewer 1-5 year old cars on the road than in 2008.


Dealers need to look for alternative stock streams, one of which www.cararena.co.uk allows Main Dealers, Motor Traders and Buyers to register and bid on cars listed on the site by the public and other motor traders. This service is free to the public and is seeing a phenomenal increase in the number of cars listed on the site for sale. Once a dealer has bid on a vehicle they can contact the seller directly to negotiate and arrange collection or drop off.


As the public have been exposed to the numerous car sites offering to buy their car, (sell your car, cash for your car) for sometime now, Car Arena offers a great alternative as the public know they will get more than one bid on their car, they can talk to buyers directly and will have more confidence in the dealers affiliated with Car Arena especially as the brand develops through carefully executed marketing strategies